


Two Jerks

by Dogwood



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, The Fade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:07:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5827978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogwood/pseuds/Dogwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirthamen and Falon'Din span some time trapped forever behind the mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll Wait

**Author's Note:**

> I know Cole mentioned the Evanuris were sleeping behind a mirror, but I love the idea of them being restless shitheads instead. This might end up being part of a series, just quick studies on these two hanging out.

He’s started kicking the glass again.

Every thousand years or so he gets like this. It’s not terribly surprising, but it’s always something to watch, and so Dirthamen leans back against a rock face worn smooth by waiting shoulders and lets his brother work. Beside him, his foot nudges a tiny seedling, pushing through the cracked and forgotten stones.

He doesn’t start with the kicking, or the punching, or the headbutting - it starts with magic. Dirthamen can see it on his face as Falon'Din works his way through his library of spells, beginning at the obvious enchantments - the unlocks and the unwinds and the undos - and inevitably ending up at fire. Great infernos of it, plumes of blue flame that do nothing but further scorch the already blackened ground. Vines of it that wrap around the frame and lick against weathered gold. Showers of it that bring flakes of ash to the air, falling like snowflakes.

And the mirror stays cold, dim, silent.

It always does.

This is something new though, and novelty is a precious gift when locked away in a ruin for all time. His brother’s picked up a piece of masonry and begun hammering on the surface of the eluvian, a stream of a curses flowing from him like a favourite song. If only his people could see him now. The Great Owl, Friend of the Dead, Bludgeoner of Not-So-Hapless Mirrors.

Dirthamen slides his tongue over his front teeth, mulling over the stonework as the owl pours his rage against the still pristine glass.

“Have you tried fire?”

A hissed expletive in reply.

Time passes (or doesn’t, it’s hard to say), and his brother sinks to his knees, head against their prison door. The last of the ash settles, and the seedling by his foot is now a small sapling. Some kind of ironbark, by the looks of it, reaching just above his knee. He steps on it, twists, and the plant comes apart in woody strings.

Falon'Din is standing, wiping soot onto the front of his robes. “Alright, I’m finished.”

The Keeper of Secrets leans away from the rock, falling into an easy pace, and joins his brother as they stroll away.


	2. Audacious Creatures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falon'Din knows his brother's secret, and Dirthamen writes his story for an audience of no one.

His brother will never say anything about it, because that's how he is, but Falon'Din knows. Maybe they all know by this point.

He knows because the vines creep and weave over the shapes of the others, sleeping fitfully where they must among the stones, but not over her. 

He knows because he has an idea where June is at this point, somewhere under years of matted flora, both dead and alive, and Sylaise is somewhat visible, her golden boots protruding ghoulishly from the thicket that surrounds her, but not Ghilan'nain.

She lies open to the moonlight, the leaves encroaching on her torn away with clear violence, pushed aside and left to die, the audacious creatures. How dare they see themselves as worthy.

Her hands rest on her stomach, which rises and falls only if you look hard enough, and sometimes not even then. The skin under her eyes is lined and dark- a look they all must share by now - but she retains some of her charm. Clearly enough for Dirthamen.

Falon'Din has never seen him at work, though he's tried. 

His own hands are placed on the stone by her head, and Falon'Din watches as she dreams, undoubtedly looking for a way out, back to her beasts, or, if she's like him (which she's made clear that she is not), concocting new, creative punishments to dole out to the wolf when they manage to catch him.

He'll shatter his castles and slaughter his people, of course. He'll pare slices of him away and twist his precious spirits into corrupted, mindless things to do his bidding. He'll burn every page from every library and wipe clean the memories of any who remain, so he will become as they are - ash and nothing. 

His brother says he thinks too small. His brother, who secretly claws the roots away from the hems of Ghilan'nain's robes while she sleeps.

 

*****

At some point during their wait, and with little else to occupy him, Dirthamen had begun writing on the walls of the courtyard, always starting with the same five words:

_I will step forth and_

From there he pens tales of the world, what has happened in his absence, in the void left behind. Because it _is_ a void.

Early on the accounts are dark, bloody affairs, raging against his own, but he tires of those eventually and leaves the rage to those more suited to it. Some are dry accounts of magical theorem, or erotic poems, or epic songs remembered from before. Some are indecipherable, written in languages long since forgotten, that Falon'Din and the others can only guess at. 

Once it was the tale of his brother, who sat upon the plinth of the cracked fountain and watched as he wrote, occasionally clarifying, more often than not suggesting better turns of phrase, prettier words, bristling when ignored and preening when heeded. Ultimately, his interest had lasted only until his story was complete, then Falon'Din had picked himself off the fountain and wandered away, humming a grim tune.

Hundreds of years will pass and the courtyard, by inches, will fill with his delicate script, his ink drawn from the very shadow around them, of which there is an endless supply. 

The others used to read them - out of obligation or curiosity or for lack of other diversions - but no one bothers anymore. They stride through the courtyard without a second glance. 

When he reaches the final stone he'll stand, lift a thin hand, and with a flick of his fingers the stones will scour themselves clean again, ready for the next tale.

_I will step forth and_

He stands before the first stone, lost in thought, as he always does before starting anew. 

Dirthamen shuts his eyes, and this time what he needs to write is there - and always has been - so he lifts his pen.

_I will step forth and tell you all that I know._

And all the secrets of the world begin to spill onto the stones. Slowly at first. There are so many he's kept hidden away, so many he's taken into himself, and releasing them aches and pulls at parts of him he hadn't known he still had.

The very earliest secrets are his own.

_I took the bread and blamed it on him. I overheard them making love. I burned the creature alive because I was able to._

They come more quickly when he shifts to the secrets of others, and he's moving over the stones at a pace he's never reached. 

Behind him, he can hear clever Ghilan'nain as she steps through the courtyard. Normally it would give him pause, even now, but he continues, and so does she, unbothered by his presence for once. 

He keeps writing.

 _her heart aches at the sound of his voice_  
_we stole his coins and he never knew_  
_he kissed me, and I hated it, but I couldn't get him in trouble_  
_it was my arrow that shot him, but I said nothing and we were all punished_  
_the solution to the equation is, and always has been, ice_

Dirthamen's teeth grind together, and his jaw starts to ache. The ink begins to blot and smear.

_he is accepting bribes_  
_we still miss him, despite what he did_  
_i read her journal, and know she no longer loves me_  
_Mythal will die tonight_  
_we just pretend it never happened_  
_i have always been a terrible mother_  
_we're surprising him with a party tomorrow_  
_she has gone insane_  
_i want the baby_

His hands shake and his fingers cramp. A whole civilization's worth of secrets and mysteries, large and small.

 _falon'din has burned the village and left the corpses in the sun_  
_his new lover is one of the wolf's spies_  
_i've broken his favourite sword_  
_i'm ashamed of him, which shames me in turn_  
_she says to not invite fen'harel_  
_it's childish, but i keep it with me still_  
_he never meant to strike her_

_he means to betray us_

Dirthamen writes the final word and stands, looking over a see of guilt and regrets, his breathing deep and uneven.

This is his greatest work, his finest story. A raven rustles its feathers somewhere above him, and he thinks, not for the first time, that is it a pity they can't read, the stupid beasts.

And he waves his hand and the stones are clean once more.


End file.
